It was a walk back in time. It was a walk I thought I would never do again. Walla Walla received another visit from 350 wine bloggers, writers, and marketers to attend the Wine Bloggers Conference the weekend, October 4-7. And like the last visit in 2010, the Marcus Whitman Hotel was the blogging home for the busy weekend.
For me it wasn't so much about the content and workshops of the conference, it was more about seeing familiar faces such as Michael Wangbickler of Balzac Communications, David and Margot Sinclair Savell of Write for Wine, Chris Nishiwaki (Seattle-based wine journalist), Craig Camp of Wine Camp, and even some of the Walla Walla locals I don't see as often as I use to.
I also met some new faces Carrie and Jen from Woodinville Wine Blog, Dave Adams and Sandra Everingham from Decanted: The Wannabe Wine Snobs Podcast, and Earle Dutton from Spitbucket
What to choose - what to choose? As always there were many good wine discovery workshops to check into. I love Spanish whites so the wine tastings and education of Rias Baixas were an excellent choice.
Did someone mention bubbles? The Gloria Ferrer Bubbles and Bites tasting from California both provided in-depth information on the wines, region, history, and food pairings. The speaker called this an "exercise." My kind of exercise!
They forced me to eat cheese and drink wine. The Wine and Cheese Pairing with the Cheeses of Europe led by the Cheese Twins was great fun, tasty, and oh-so informative.
One of my favorite things at the WBC's has always been the live wine blogging also known as "speed tasting." It's kind of like speed dating, but better because you're drinking good wine. There are typically two-speed tastings during the conference weekend with one of the two occurring at the end of each day just before dinner. One day is focused on all white wines and the next day is all reds. It's kind of a happy hour just before dinner. A winery rep pours one of their wines to a table of eight to 10 bloggers. They pour the wine, explain the wine they're pouring, answer questions, pose for photos and this all happens in five minutes... the buzzer rings "time is up" and the winery rep rotates to the next table and does it all over again. Each table of wine bloggers has an average of 12 visits from the wineries represented. A live Twitter feed is shown on a large screen, which is fun to check out and see what your neighbor across the room has posted.
By the time Sunday rolled around I was supposed to attend a wine tasting tour and lunch rolling around the Walla Walla Valley. This ol' grey mare ain't' what she use to be. Her palate was spent, her body ached and it was raining outside. So I slowly sipped my morning coffee and stayed home.
This weekend was my last hurrah and even though I chose to miss out on the day's event, it was okay. I had done all of these things before - - and on my own time, I will do it again.
I have been wine blogging since 2005. I have tasted some of the best wines in the world. Met fascinating and interesting content creators, and even some famous people in the world of wine. My years of wine blogging was a success and I had a good run...
This weekend was my last hurrah and even though I chose to miss out on the day's event, it was okay. I had done all of these things before - - and on my own time, I will do it again.
I have been wine blogging since 2005. I have tasted some of the best wines in the world. Met fascinating and interesting content creators, and even some famous people in the world of wine. My years of wine blogging was a success and I had a good run...
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